Wednesday, April 25, 2007
PEARL CHASE
Phillip Adams claims:
The appalling Donald Rumsfeld observed shortly before the attack on the twin towers that political survival “needed a Pearl Harbor” ...
That quote doesn’t turn up in a Google search, although similar claims have appeared in comments at various commie blogs. Sometimes the Pearl Harbor line is attributed to Dick Cheney:
Perhaps if I didn’t KNOW the NEOCONS long range goals, I wouldn’t be so quick to question 9/11 at all. But cheney said it - WE NEED A PEARL HARBOR…coincidence? I DON’T THINK SO.
And again:
Bush was hobbled from Day 1 and Cheney famously remarked that they needed a Pearl Harbour Day to shake things up and get them moving - or words to that effect.
Adams in 2005 ran the alleged Rumsfeld quote:
The word was out - via White House leaks - that Rumsfeld was for the chop. When poor Donald was forced to read the names of likely replacements, he said he’d need a Pearl Harbor to save him. Osama bin Laden obliged.
Note that Adams now directly quotes Rumsfeld; he’s previously been exposed as a quote doctor. It’s possible that the line evolved via leftoid paranoia over this Project for the New American Century document:
Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor. Domestic politics and industrial policy will shape the pace and content of transformation as much as the requirements of current missions. A decision to suspend or terminate aircraft carrier production, as recommended by this report and as justified by the clear direction of military technology, will cause great upheaval. Likewise, systems entering production today - the F-22 fighter, for example - will be in service inventories for decades to come. Wise management of this process will consist in large measure of figuring out the right moments to halt production of current-paradigm weapons and shift to radically new designs. The expense associated with some programs can make them roadblocks to the larger process of transformation - the Joint Strike Fighter program, at a total of approximately $200 billion, seems an unwise investment. Thus, this report advocates a two-stage process of change - transition and transformation - over the coming decades.
Musician Matt Bellamy summarised the above:
The outspoken singer says, “September 11 is clearly an inside job, there’s massive evidence that suggests that it was either allowed to happen or even worse, deliberately made to happen.
“There was a document called PROJECT FOR THE NEW AMERICA CENTURY which was made by neo-Con (right wing) writers in the 90s who supplied most of the agenda that (GEORGE W) BUSH is putting into place now, which clearly says, ‘We need a Pearl Harbor-level of event so we can have an excuse to invade the Middle East.’”
Even Adams hasn’t gone that far. Yet.